Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (right), former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their daughter Chelsea at the memorial service of South African former president Nelson Mandela.

Written by

RICHARD COHEN

It is incumbent on me as a columnist to do one of those year-end things - the 10 best of this, the 10 worst of that or, as you will see, who had the worst year in politics. That distinction goes, with some reluctance on my part, to Hillary Rodham Clinton. As has sometimes happened in her life, events got away from her.

A good politician, as Napoleon once said about military men, has to have luck - and 2013 was not a lucky year for Clinton. If she is the next Democratic presidential candidate, she will have to follow a Democratic president whose approval ratings - once as high as 76 percent - are now scraping ...